Hello.. this is my first time posting a question here. I recently rescued 4 guinea pigs... it's been years since I've had piggies. So basically I'm starting over... tonight when I was holding Herbie, I was petting him around the bald spot behind his ear and I saw a speck of something.. upon looking closer, it moved! Ugh!! I grabbed my cell phone and turned on the flashlight so I could get a better look. I saw a little bug.. very, very small. Pale in color, like a light tan or yellow. I've been looking up mites and have to come to the conclusion it's most like fur mites... the C caviae. However, I am not a vet and could totally be wrong about this. I am only going by what I've read online, pictures I've looked up and the fact that Herbie doesn't seem to be all that bothered.. he doesn't seem itchy, etc.

So, short of going to the vet and making him undergo a painful skin scraping.. how do I know what kind of mite it is, or if it's possibly lice... and how to do I kill them? We thank you!

It's lice -- you can't see mites. They microscopic, and burrow under the skin. Anything you can see moving around generally falls in the lice category, except for fleas.

You can treat them with ivermectin -- see http://www.guinealynx.info/ivermectin_topical.html. The easiest stuff to use is this stuff, although you might find it in smaller quantities at a local feed store: https://www.amazon. com/Durvet-Ivermectin-Pour-1-Lt/dp/B000HHM6I0/ref=sr_1_17 This is not a bad price for the injectable stuff, which is also given by rubbing it in the skin: https://www.amazon. com/Generic-Ivermectin-Injection-50-ml/dp/B004FVUH6C/ref=sr_1_2

Note that I had to put a space between "amazon." and "com" to get this to display properly. So you'll have to copy and paste the links rather than click on them.

Ok, I'm back.. sorry to be a pain.. but I'm doing more reading and looking at pictures... if it's lice, wouldn't I be able to see nits? There were none.. I looked really closely too.. especially once I saw that little bug move. Yikes! My daughter had head lice in Jr High so I know what the nits look like... and this bug was a lot smaller than regular head lice. Ugh.. but either way, I guess the Ivermectin would take care of it. I also found something called Beaphar Anti-Parasite Spot On... does anyone have any experience with it?

Our Sebastian had lice, and I didn't see nits. I'm not entirely sure that this type of lice has visible nits, they're so tiny to begin with. If they look like very tiny bits of white/yellow rice moving slowly up and down the hair shafts, it's lice. The topical Ivermectin will knock it out. Dose it precisely as described on the GL topical Ivermectin page. 3 doses 7 days apart and Sebastian's bugs were gone, never to return.